What are they thinking?
Woman in the Middle | January 29, 2015A few days ago I did a post about people who puzzle me. I guess this post is along the same lines, but in a much more significant way than just a person who lets you hold the door open for them.
I got the following email from Youngest Daughter a week or so ago:
So I know this is out of the blue, but I was hanging out with some girl friends last night and they started talking about when they were growing up how their moms would always give them smaller portions at meals and harass them about exercising and take them to the doctors to see if they had thyroid conditions that explained their “inability to lose weight”. Just…it kinda freaked me out and I wanted to say thanks for not doing that stuff to me (even when I was a weird looking barrel body child) and not giving me a body issue complex O_O And yes, I don’t care if you make this a blog post
Wow, those mothers puzzle me. But I was glad to find out I had done something right as a mother!
By the way, I thought I would explain the “barrel body child” remark. When I was about ten I porked out a bit. I was straight up and down and had no curves. I have always joked that my body at that age was shaped like a barrel. It isn’t unusual for girls that age to have a body like that. Youngest took after me at that age, but I didn’t let it worry me because I knew she would do what I did, which was grow taller, stretch out, and slim down. She did just that. We have always referred to that time in our lives as when we were a “barrel body child.” FYI, don’t worry, I never referred to Youngest as a barrel body child when she was one. I also ignored the doctor when he said we needed to watch her weight. Sometimes mothers do know best.
Talking to daughters about their weight is a hard thing for mothers to do, especially if they are overweight. Younger daughters you can help by buying good foods for them, but when they are grown and out of the house, that’s a whole different ballgame. I just leave it all in prayer!
Sometimes kids benefit from things done to their Moms. I was a bit of a picky eater. Mom never forced me to eat anything, because she was forced to drink cream & “waste away” tea to gain weight until the doctor finally told my Grandmother she was a healthy, if skinny, child & to leave her alone.
Mothers like those are so wrong, I have never told any of my girls they needed to watch what they ate as childs and Natasha was a little chubby girl but we loved her just the way she was. My niece Denni is a chubby toddler but we don’t stress over it she may very well loose the chubbiness as she gets older